Chapter 13

COWARDICE OF THE CHICKERING SET.

Merriwell encountered Hodge in the campus, informed him of what he had done, and together they started down-town. By and by they took a street-car, and, getting out at a familiar corner, found themselves in front of a group of Merriwell's friends.

"Excuse me if I walk on!" said Bart.

"No, you are going with me!"

"My room is preferred to my company with those fellows!"

They had not yet been seen by Merry's friends, who were grouped on the sidewalk about Jack Ready, who was talking and gesticulating in his inimitable way.

"Now don't get sulky, Bart!" Frank commanded. "Those fellows are my friends."

"They don't like me. I've seen it, Merry. When I think of some things they have said, it makes me hot even against you."

"Do you want to turn me against you, Bart? That is a good way to do it."

"I don't care! I shall never snivel round those fellows!" Bart snarled. "I'm your friend, Merry! That's enough, isn't it?"

"You take a poor way to show your friendship, Hodge! You vex me sometimes. Now, look here! The 'flock' can be together but a little while longer. The last of June is approaching fast, and that brings commencement. Diamond, Rattleton, Browning, Gamp, Dismal, Danny, Bink, and a lot more will leave Yale forever in June."

The reflection touched Bart's fiery heart.

"All right," he said. "Go ahead!" and walked after Merriwell.

Willis Paulding, the Anglomaniac, passed them, going in the direction of the large hotel across the way.

"Mud on the bloon--I mean blood on the moon!" exclaimed Rattleton, as Bart and Merry came up.

"What's up?" Frank asked.

"Paulding and the Chickering set are up--there!" said Danny, pointing to some upper windows of the hotel. "They are having a big feed to-night."

"Drinking tea and smoking cigarettes," explained Bruce.

"I've invited every fellow here to attend that banquet with me," Ready jovially declared. "But not a soul will accept the invitation. They fancy their heads aren't hard enough for that kind of drinking!"

"Bub-bub-better get an invitation yourself fuf-first!" Gamp stuttered.

"Oh, I circulate everywhere, like first-class currency. Want to go up and take a peep with me, Merriwell? I'd give a V any time to hear one of those fellows respond to a toast! Come along. What d'ye say? I'll be the pilot."

But Merriwell was no more in the mood for such an escapade than the other members of the "flock." Thereupon, Ready skipped across the street himself and disappeared within the hotel.

Merriwell and his friends walked down the street, and in the course of half an hour returned to that corner. Then they saw Ready at one of the upper windows, looking down at them. He had a big piece of cake in one hand and a glass of wine or tea in the other.

"Come up to the feast!" he bellowed. "Great fun!"

But Merriwell had his eyes fixed elsewhere. Suddenly he exclaimed:

"That hotel is on fire!" He had observed a tongue of flame leaping from a window.

He started across the street, but before he had taken a dozen steps the fire-alarm bell sounded. A few of the people in the hotel seemed to be awaking to the fact that the building was on fire. Merry's friends joined him, and they stood near the center of the street, looking up at the fire and discussing the matter. Then Ready was seen again at the window, staring about in a bewildered way, as if he contemplated leaping to the street below.

"Do you suppose the fire could cut him off so soon?" Merry anxiously queried.

"It doesn't seem likely," Diamond answered. "But, of course, no one can tell. The Chickering set are up there yet!"

A crowd was collecting, and Merry's friends were thinking of going on across the street, when the arrival of a clanging fire-engine drove them back to the corner from which they had started.

It could now be seen that even in that brief space of time the fire was rapidly spreading. The blaze first seen had increased in size, and flames were now issuing from other windows on that floor. The fire seemed to be in the third story. Luckily, the hotel stood on a corner, away from other buildings.

People were now pouring in a stream from the exits. Merriwell looked again toward the window where Ready had been seen.

"Ready will come right across here as soon as he gets down," he said. "I suppose he is all right, but the fire is on that floor!"

But Ready did not appear. Other fire-engines arrived and began their work. Firemen swarmed everywhere. But the fire increased in intensity in spite of this fight against it. The hotel appeared to have emptied itself of its occupants.

And still Jack Ready did not come. Willis Paulding stumbled across the street, white and shaky. His hair and eyebrows were singed, his Lunnon-made clothes were wet and limp, and he was terribly frightened.

"Merriwell," he gasped, "Jack Ready is up there!"

Merry started. A fear that such might be the case had been growing on him.

"How do you know?" he asked.

Paulding forgot his English drawl in his fright and excitement.

"I saw him!" he admitted. "He was trying to get Lew Veazie down the stairs when he fell. Veazie had been drinking a little, and couldn't help himself."

"And where is Veazie?"

"He is down on the street somewhere."

"And you ran away and left Ready, after he had injured himself while trying to aid you!"

Paulding dropped his head.

"The fire was right on us, and we----"

"Where did he fall?"

"On the center stairway leading from the third story," said Paulding, shivering under Merry's rebuke.

"Fellows, I am going up there after Jack Ready," said Frank calmly.

"You'll go at the risk of your life!" shouted Browning.

But Frank was already half-way across the street. The fire had spread with astonishing rapidity. Some combustible material in the second story had exploded with great force, and this had seemed to scatter the fire. The entire second story was on fire now, as well as the one above it.

Frank vanished in the crowd, which was retreating through fear that the walls were about to fall. Other fire-engines had come up. The people who fell back from the dangerous vicinity crowded on the Yale men who had looked so anxiously after Merriwell as he hastened to the aid of the imperiled freshman. Willis Paulding, feeling Merriwell's rebuke, and stung by a feeling of his own cowardice, had slipped away.

"I don't like that," Hodge grumbled, looking at the spot where Frank had vanished.

"I've seen things myself that I like better!" grunted Browning.

"You can bet your life that Merry will go wherever a friend is in danger!" said Rattleton.

"Or a foe, either!" added Diamond.

"Fuf-fellows, I'm worried abub bub-bout this!" stuttered Joe Gamp.

"I'd feel easier a good deal if we had all stayed home to-night!" droned Dismal.

For once, neither Danny nor Bink had any comment to offer, funny or otherwise. A feeling that something awful was about to happen stilled their chatter.

Then all started, leaping as if they had been shot at, and pushed back into the retreating and startled crowd. A furnace or something of the kind had given way in the basement with a thunderous report. A great gap showed in one of the walls, and the wall itself seemed on the point of toppling down.

"Sounded like a siege-gun!" chirped a well-known voice. "Fellows, I'm glad I wasn't in there then! Had the greatest time you ever saw--narrow escape and all that; but here I am again, with my stomach filled with cake and my head intoxicated with tea. All right side up, you see!"

The speaker was Jack Ready!

"Where is Merriwell?" Bart asked.

"Merriwell?" and Ready looked round. "Refuse me, but I supposed he was the center of this intellectual group! Yes, where is Merriwell?"

"He went up there after you--to get you out of the fire!" exclaimed Bink, in great excitement.

"You haven't sus-sus-seen him?" demanded Gamp.

Some firemen planted a ladder against the swaying wall, as if to brace it, and a group came round the corner dragging a huge muddy hose, which they intended to train on another part of the hotel. But, so far, the fire had baffled all their efforts.

"Did he go up there?" Ready gasped.

"Sure!" said Danny. "He is up there now."

Ready's round, red-apple cheeks grew white.

"If he is up there now, he'll never come out!"

Bart stared at the shaking wall and the flaming windows--at the smoke clouds rolling from the doorways. The hotel had become a furnace. Then he stepped out, with a determined look on his dark face. Ready understood the meaning of that look.

"You'll go to your death if you try it!" he declared. "It is hotter than ten ovens, and some timbers fell from the second floor as I came out. If I hadn't rolled under the stairway when I fell, and thus had protection, I should have been cooked alive."

But if Hodge heard the warning, he did not heed it. He pushed aside Ready's detaining hand and ran quickly across the street. They saw him reach the first smoke-filled doorway, and then he was swallowed up in the smoke. The other members of Merriwell's flock stood still, with shaking limbs and anxiously beating hearts.

"They will both be killed!" gasped Rattleton.

"Sure!" groaned Dismal.

"I don't believe we shall ever see Hodge again!" Ready declared, and his cheeks grew even whiter.

Bruce moved as if he, too, thought of rushing into the flames. Diamond's hand was laid on his shoulder.

"Wait a minute. No use risking any more lives! Bart can do that, if any one can!"

Browning felt that this was true, and fell back with a groan, while a bit of suspicious moisture shone in his eyes. The walls were in such a state that the firemen now began to disconnect the hose and to get the engines away. They warned back the crowd, and policemen began to shout orders and to enforce them with batons.

In the meantime, what was Bart Hodge doing, and what had befallen Frank Merriwell? Hodge was sure that Frank had made his way to the stairway where Willis Paulding had said Jack Ready had fallen. It was the center stairway leading from the third story.

Hodge had not much difficulty in passing through the hotel office, for, after the dash through the doorway, he found the smoke not so dense. It seemed to be sucked into the doorway, and the clerk's desk and vicinity were comparatively free of it. The room was deserted, and there were everywhere evidences of a hasty leave-taking.

Bart ran first to the elevator, thinking he might be able to use that, but the door appeared to be warped, and he could not get it open easily. He did not know whether the elevator was in running condition, and much doubted it, because of the explosion in the basement. Therefore, not wishing to lose any time, he jumped for the nearest stairway, as soon as he felt that no help could be had from the elevator, and climbed as fast as he could toward the second story.

This stairway was filled with smoke, and he felt the heat increase as he ascended, but he still had no trouble, except from the smoke. But when he reached the second floor his heart almost failed. The stairway on which Jack Ready had fallen, and the only stairway Bart could see, was wrapped in flames, which writhed and twined like serpents. The heat, too, was intense.

Bending close to the floor, to escape the smoke and heat as much as possible, Bart groped about, looking everywhere for Merriwell, thinking he might have fallen there. He saw him nowhere, and called loudly. But no sound came back except the roar of the fire. It even drowned all the noises of the street. But not for a moment did he think of turning back, though he knew how awful the danger would be if he tried to go up that burning stairway. He cast about for some sort of protection. A flimsy curtain of cotton material was stretched across a doorway. This Hodge pulled down and wrapped round his head, protecting his hands with it also as well as he could. Then he measured the stairway and its direction with a quick glance, and made a wild dash for the fire.

He went up the stairway at a run, with his clothes scorching and the protecting cotton cloth bursting into flame. It was a desperate spurt, but Hodge went through the fire, and with a bound threw himself beyond it, and felt, rather than knew, that he was in some kind of hall, where the fire was not so bad. He pulled aside the flaming cloth, pitched it from him, put up his scorching hands to shield his eyes, and looked about.

"Merriwell!"

The cry was one of joy.

"Merriwell!"

This time the exclamation held the tone of fear and dread. Frank Merriwell was lying in this space, which Bart saw now to be a wide corridor. Frank seemed unconscious. He was lying close against the wall, with his arms doubled over his head. Near him was a piece of timber which had fallen from the floor above. Other pieces of timbers seemed about to fall from the same place. This one, as Bart saw at a glance, had struck Merriwell down.

Bart's heart almost stopped beating when the thought came to him that perhaps Frank was dead. He leaped toward him, with a bound, uttering that cry of "Merriwell!" as he did so.

"Frank! Frank!" he cried. "Frank, are you much hurt?"

The roaring of the fire in the stairway sounded louder, than ever. Its noise was like that of a raging furnace. Bart's hands were scorched, but he did not feel the pain of the burns. Another piece of timber dropped from the floor above within a foot of where he stood. Others seemed about to fall. There was fire all round him, and the whole corridor seemed on the point of leaping into flame.

Hodge lifted Merry's unconscious form and faced the fire. A groan came from Merriwell's lips. Bart looked into the white face and saw a bloody lump on the side of Merry's head. That face appealed to him as if for protection from the fire.

In spite of his many faults, Bart Hodge held for Frank Merriwell the love of a strong and manly heart. Frank was the one true and faithful friend who had always stood by him--the one friend who always understood him--the one friend who was every ready to defend him. And Hodge would have laid down his life for Merriwell!

He saw that if he dashed through the fire with Merriwell, that face, so strong and manly and true, would be horribly disfigured. He did not think of his own so much as of Merriwell's. Yet he felt that if he got out of the building with his burden he would have to make haste. There were doors along the corridor, and he knew that they opened into rooms. He put Merriwell down, and finding the first door locked, kicked it in with his foot.

The room was full of smoke, but the fire had not yet entered it. Hodge hastily tore from the bed a big double blanket, and retreated with it into the corridor. This blanket he wound round Merriwell's face and shoulders and hands; then lifted Frank again, protecting himself with the folds of the blanket as well as he could as he did so. Thus dragging Merriwell, he stumbled toward the hell of fire that roared in the stairway.

There was a jarring sound, and for a moment it seemed that the whole building was tumbling down round his ears. A section of the rear wall had fallen outward, and the part of the hotel containing the kitchen was a burning wreck. Bart hardly heard the sound, so absorbed was he in the task before him. He did not feel Merriwell's weight--in fact, his strength seemed to be as great as Browning's.

"Frank!" he cried, in his heart--"Frank, my dearest friend, if I can't carry you out, we'll die together!"

The fire in the stairway had greatly increased. But Hodge did not hesitate. Wrapping the blanket closer about Merriwell and himself, he rushed, with seeming recklessness, but with a boldness that was really the highest form of courage, into that raging cauldron of fire, and descended with the steady celerity of one who sees every foot of the way and has no thrill of fear.

The blanket crisped and cracked and smoked into flame as the fiery waves beat against it. Bart seemed to be breathing liquid flame. But the thick bulk of the blanket shielding Merriwell's face and hands kept them from the searing fire.

Half-fainting, but victorious, Bart Hodge reeled out of the hotel, bearing Merriwell in his arms. A great cheer went up from the excited crowd, for, somehow, the information had spread that a daring attempt to rescue a friend was being made by one of the college students.

Merriwell's flock dived through the thick smoke and carried both Hodge and Merriwell to a place of security. And even as they did so the tottering side wall, that had so long been swaying, fell, and the shell of the burning hotel collapsed like a house of cards.

* * * * *

The next morning Danny Griswold bounced into Merriwell's room. Hodge was there. He and Frank were talking about the fire and congratulating themselves that neither had received bad burns and that Merry's injury was not serious.

"News!" exclaimed Danny. "Morton Agnew left New Haven last night."

"I knew he would," said Frank. "He knows I am going to give his confession to the faculty this morning, and he would not want to stay here a minute after that. Yale will never see him again."

"Good thing for Yale!" Hodge grunted.